Any Rude Audience Encounters?- Page 4

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 7/10/04 at 8:00pm

Or maybe it was $20. I honestly don't remember. It was a tour though

[dramafreak13]

Posted: 7/10/04 at 8:37pm

so i was at Lion King in Manhattan a few years ago, i live in california and although i now go to school in new york, this was my very first time seeing a broadway show on broadway. little kids were screaming through it, parents were explaining things to their kids, a girl behind me kept kicking my chair and then giggling, and this father and son next to my dad were talking the entire time. my dad finally turned to them and said something to quiet them, the father then says, "this is a very important, once in a lifetime experience for my son" my dad then proceeded to ask said "we live in california, i think its a little more important for us". needless to say, it didnt help things much. ugh i hate rude people in the theatre.

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 7/10/04 at 10:14pm

I have two stories.
-In Cabaret my sister brought her friend to see it with us. I didn't really like her friend that much but if I said anything I wouldn't have been allowed to go. In the middle of every song and during some really important scenes she would say (in a normal voice) "I don't get it." At the end when the lights were flashing on the Cabaret Girls and Sally she said "Why are there lights? I still don't get it." As we were walking out of the theater she said, "This is one of the most confusing shows I've ever seen." Needless to say I haven't seen her since.
-In The Boy From Oz I was the one in the family who got to sit next to the stranger. Throughout teh entire show she was talking and kissing her boyfriend and farting on my seat. I know this is immature but she made me laugh hysterically during "Quiet Please, There's A Lady on Stage" and Hugh Jackman was staring at me. At the end of the show she still didn't understand anything. (I always get stuck with the stupid people) I honestly feel bad for her boyfriend!

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 7/10/04 at 11:01pm

My biggest pet peeve of audiences is when people leave before the show is even over. In every show I've ever seen, there's always at least a few jerks who blatantly walk out at the height of the action, or just as the show's winding down. They're basically flipping off the actors, so they might as well go the extra mile and physically extend their middle fingers as they stumble out as loudly as possible.
Now, this isn't rudeness per se, just obnoxiousness. When "The Lion King" came to Denver, I went with my parents and an (ex) friend. Sitting directly behind us were a rather large family who considered themselves the Grand Theater Experts of the World, because they saw POTO "like, eight times". Not only that, one of them walked out of "Miss Saigon." Needless to say, my blood was boiling.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 7/11/04 at 9:40pm

I have a special gift for always being seated in front of/behind/next to:
people who unwrap candies and rattle bags
seat-kickers
people who have big hair (when I'm behind them)
people who wear way too much smelly perfume/aftershave
stupid people who talk to eachother throughout the show because they missed a line or don't 'get it'

my most recent "favorites"...
I was seated in front of a man who had the most disgusting snorting habit. He did it about every 5 minutes and it was vile and absolutely distracting.

I was seated next to a drunk who fell asleep and snored, and then had an accident in his pants - right in his seat. Lovely.

At "The Boy From Oz" a week or so ago, I sat next to truly the dumbest blonde that ever walked the face of the earth. When the Judy Garland character came on stage, she yelled out "Oh my God, I thought she was DEAD!" Hugh Jackman LOST it. It was funny, but annoying as h*ll because for the rest of the show she kept talking out loud.

If there's an annoying person in the theatre, I'm next to them. You can count on it!

Updated On: 7/11/04 at 09:40 PM

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 7/11/04 at 10:00pm

At the beginning of the show at the souviner(sp?) stand, they should sell an "Anti-Annoyance Gift Bag for the Theater Lover" filled with goodies such as:

1) a wooden paddle (for the little ones in case they misbehave)
2) leather belt (to tame the parents of loudmouthed children)
3) soap (too put in the mouths of those theater talkers)
4) duct tape (also for those talkers)
5) extendable "hand" (to grab those cell phones)

Anything else?

[tmz814]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 12:16am

My most annoying theater experiences recently happened at Fiddler and Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (I think that was the title... hehehe... so bad I blocked it out)...

At Six Dance Lessons I was in the mezzanine next to a large old man who ate smelly cheese and peanut butter crackers (the orange ones in the noisy plastic wrapper) throughout the entire first act. Thank goodness he left during intermission.

I went to see Fiddler during a preview and ended up sitting next to a rather dumb woman and her husband/boyfriend. She talked to his the entire first act and when I gave her a look or quietly said "shh". she cursed me out and talked about me to her boyfriend/husband, but I guess she got the point because she did not talk at all during Act II.

[jezzebelle]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 7:34am

For some reason, it's always at Hairspray where I have rude encounters. For instance, these people thought they were at a movie theatre and loudly passed a box of Junior Mints back and fourth for the entire first act. Then I constantly am seated around people who are joke repeaters, you know the ones. They have a husband/wife who miss the joke and are always going, "What'd they say ?" and the spouse loudly repeats the joke that had passed ten minutes ago. This continues throughout the entire show.

My favorite was when we were in second row orchestra and these women seated behind us were being not so quiet with their random comments during the show and one of the women says to the other, in regards to Harvey; "Is that a man ?" I was shocked into silence.

-Jess

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 8:23am

Went to see "Dream: The Johnny Mercer Musical" with Lesley Ann Warren. Some guy behind me had a little too much to drink before the show and as soon as Ms. Warren steps onto the stage and starts to sing he says very loudly...she SUCKS..she can't sing. He finishes the sentence with a burp.

[Maggie]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 11:31am

When I went to see GYPSY...there were some old coots on the end of the aisle and my seat was in the middle. They wouldn't let me in to get to my seat. I was so shocked! Granted, they had canes but the gent on the end was sooooo rude. I said "excuse me" really nicely and he rudely told me to go around the other side.

[Plum]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 12:13pm

NYadgal, your BFO story cracked me up. It's moronic, but what a compliment to Isabel Keating.

[The Goat]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 12:28pm

I love this thread! My friends are all tired of my "lack of manners in the theatre" spiel, so now I have somewhere else to turn for solace. And here I thought I was the only magnet for the crude, rude, and socially stupid at the theatre. I still remember an encounter at a performance of "Streetcar Named Desire" with Jessica Lange, where the couple next to my then-boyfriend and me kept sampling and selecting chocolates from a big Whitman sampler-type box (yes, the kind with the crinkly paper around each chocolate). When this happened during one of Jessica's big scenes, my boyfriend elbowed me, and gestured to say something to them, so I whispered into the woman's ear, asking her if they couldn't hold off on further chocolate consumption until the interval. You would have thought I asked her to kill herself. She, in a very loud voice I'm certain even Lange could hear: "Would you also like me to stop breathing so I don't disturb you?" Of course, this elicited loud "shushing" from the rows around us. Madame then had the nerve to turn to me and say: "Now, see what you did?" Grrrrr.

[th]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 12:55pm

The only annoying thing that I have experienced is the intermission break, and people coming back late, climbing over you. I cannot be mad at them though because 15 minutes to stand in line to go to the bathroom is not a lot of time(especially for women). The only other thing I can complain about is some people's perfume or cologne, I wish people would learn when enough is enough.

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 1:02pm

There are so many posts in this thread about people with food. I thought food wasn't allowed in the theater. How do these people get away with it?

[Plum]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 1:11pm

*looks slightly guilty*

I've brought a water bottle into the theater when I had a cough. But I was doing that so I wouldn't bother people. Wanna know how I got away with it? No one looked through my purse. And given today's hyper-alert atmosphere, they could easily do it and get no complaints.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 1:13pm

When I'm in the city, I usually have a backpack with me, and they just ask me to open usually the biggest space in it and put the flash light in and say thank you. They don't look for the water bottle I have under that T-shirt. They really don't care. They have 2000 other bags to look through before the show starts.

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 1:15pm

Well, a water ball is nothing compared to other snacks people have brought in such as a box of chocolates and chips. Before we know it, people will bring portable tables and bring their steak dinner with them!

[Matt_G]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 1:18pm

Okay, okay. I'm going to confess something. I only did it once and I would never do it again, but I was starving and the show was starting so before AIDA, I ran next door to McDonalds and bought some McNuggets. Not a lot, just a 6 piece. Okay, maybe it was 9. I was doing standing room, so I kinda just held 'em and ate. Nobody seemed to notice or care. But now whenever I hear AIDA I want McNuggets. Not those nasty new ones but the fatty old ones with the dark meat.

[onceadancer2]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 1:24pm

I'm not sure if this is rude or frightening. I appeared as a dancer in I MARRIED AN ANGEL in 1938. The Anschluss took place just as we were going into rehearsal or during the pre-Broadway tryout, I can't remember. Two of our leads were Vivienne Seagl, who came from a very distinguished Jewish family in Philadelphia, and Walter Slezak, whose father, Leo Slezak, was a one time famous Wagnerian tenor, who stayed behind in Germany and, according to rumors, was a highly regarded member of the Nazi party. Slezak and Segal were playing a romantic pair. There was a song, I'LL TELL THE MAN IN THE STREET, at the conclusion of which Segal and Slezak kissed. At one pre-Broadway trout, a man stood up and screamed something to the effect that a Jewish woman who kissed a Nazi should be shot. He then fiddled for something in his pocket and which point the curtain descended and the man was jumped and pummeled by some members in the audience. We never found out who this person was. So rude or frightening, who can tell!!!!

Miriam

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 1:24pm

LOL, don't worry about it. It amazes me how people actually disturb others when eating, like crunching chips in someone's face. I'll admit, I haven't been *THE* perfect theater viewer. However, I haven't yelled throughout the theater, count how many times Sutton Foster spit, or been drunk before a show.

[Emutional]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 1:25pm

when I went to see POTO in london, i had all these people talking around me. There were 3 kids in back of me...2 teenagers and like a 10 year old girl. We were in the middle of the orchestra, right under the chandelier (sp?) and the girl kept saying "Jake, what if that falls on us!" and they kept trying to reassure her. And then the couple next to me kept up a nice conversation in a language that sounded like chinese. They walked out at intermission and their tone sounded kind of harsh...they didn't show up for the 2nd half of the show.

[Plum]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 1:39pm

That reminds of going on a field trip and telling the most annoying kid in my class that the blue whale in the Museum of Natural History was clinging to the ceiling by a string and some Elmer's Glue. Now that was funny.

And I don't get the food thing. Or the conversation thing, for that matter. What are they there for, to watch a show or to hang out? There are less expensive (and more appropriate) places to listen to music while munching on snacks and talking to your friends.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 3:36pm

maybe she just never made it there.

[Plum]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 4:46pm

Or, you know...go before the show. Just a thought.

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 7/12/04 at 5:20pm

Hmmm, maybe we can make the "Theater Pal." It would be like the version of something I saw on TV a looooooooooong time ago called the "Stadium Pal." A guy made some contraption that allowed one to pee while sitting down, preferably at a sports game. It would travel through a small tube to some enclosed bucket or something like that. Don't remember exactly, check out the link, or if that doesn't work go to google and type in Stadium Pal.
Stadium Pal